Busy Busy!

After the chicken show a couple weeks ago Farmer Girl and I have worked can’t see to can’t see every day I didn’t have to work away from home. The next few pics are Patchwork Shed progress. 

A trip over the mountain for supplies. Gypsum for the gardens. Peat moss for chicken bedding (an experiment this year) and some trim boards for the shed 

The door is ready to hang. 

Ready to paint this side

This side is half done. 

Getting organized 

Making progress 

Getting moved in

Still a window, crack filling and trim work but finally closed in. 

At the same time I worked away from home, picked flowers and veg for market and did chores everyday. 

We also took time out to strip the big hoophouse and cover it with plastic for the winter. 

Then we stripped down the little hoophouse, cleaned it out and put down fresh bedding. 

Painting the tools bright colors makes them easy to see and remember to put them away. 

About 5 deer came to visit 

We also worked on straightening out the hoophouse the goats destroyed. Even with 3 ratchet straps on it I don’t think it will ever be the same. 

On Friday I found some daikon and picked greens for market. 

The tatsoi is coming along but not quite big enough yet. 

Before. 

After. 

We also cleaned up the driveway so I could pull up and unload feed into the shed  instead of putting it in the house 

I changed the gasket on the wood stove door and was amazed at how much longer the wood burned over night. I just hadn’t realized how much the old gasket was leaking air. 

We went to market on Saturday. 

Saturday afternoon we cleaned out a coop. 

We did some other odds and ends. Picked up feed and groceries. Had a mostly homegrown dinner of leftover duck and veg stir fry. 

Sunday we gave this garden space some attention. 

I dug and pulled rocks from this space, put down some solid amendments and repaired and extended the old drip lines 

Farmer girl helped pound fence posts. 

You can’t really see it but there is scrap fencing on the posts. Need to do a little more soil work and set up irrigation on that side.  Peas will go on the fence.  Lettuce, spinach, arugula are planned for the bed with hoops. 

Whew. Been a long couple weeks. Time for dinner and a shower. 

#appreciation

Tonight I appreciate my Farmer Girl and her helping hands. Love you honey!

You Will Love These Folks! June 18, 2011

You Will Love These Folks!

June 18, 2011 at 2:12 am

Imagine a space one fifth of an acre in size, about the average city lot, 66×132 feet. Now of course on that space is a little house, a garage, driveway, paths et.  So when you subtract all of those you end up with one tenth of an acre. Gosh doesn’t sound like a very big space does it? And you are right, it isn’t a very big space.
But with a great deal of effort and determination that small space has done something really really amazing. In 2010 that ONE TENTH of an acre,( just .1) produced 7,030 pounds of fruits and vegetables! WOW! NO GMO crop could possibly do that! NO Chemical Company can produce those kinds of yields in modern American Agriculture in any way shape or form! They do not even come close!
BECAUSE in PER ACRE amounts it totals: 70,300 pounds. No current big farm agriculture can possibly produce 35 TONS of fruits and veggies on an acre of land!
NOW, imagine if every person that could possibly do this, would do it. Where ever they live. Even if they didn’t manage these ginormous yields, but just think if every one grew their own salad, potatoes and green beans?
Think of how beautiful our cities would become with all that green. Think of how much pollution of all sorts would be reduced. How about whole city blocks of people getting together and landscaping the whole neighborhood together, with everyone sharing the produce of the different trees? That alone would be priceless.
One of the things America has surely lost in most places: a sense of place, of belonging, a local food system, a sense of caring and community. This is a way of beginning to get it back.
The Dervaes family have a number of websites, all of which you can access from this link.
Now around here, it is hotter than blazes and half the state of AZ seems like it is burning up with no rain or let up in sight. So I will dream of fall and winter and early next spring….hopefully the next pea crop will be as good as this ones was:

Good Reading

June 16, 2011 at 2:35 am

Well there were hoof prints in the potato patch this afternoon. But I don’t think it was javalina because nothing was rooted up and they were pretty big. So I have a feeling it was the deer that have been hanging around. It’s been really dry so I’m thinking that they are coming for water.
I might put a tub of water over across the creek for them or something, just to help keep them out of the yard.
In the meantime I’ve been having a wonderful read over at Gene Logsdon’s blog; awesome fella, I’ve been reading him almost as long as he’s been writing. Bought a few seeds the other day and cleaned out one of my seed boxes this afternoon. I really am trying not to go whole hog on the garden but my fingers are itching to be in the dirt.
So I planted about 3 luffa seeds, a few red sunflower seeds and some snapdragons. That shouldn’t get me into too much trouble. I planted them in some soil blocks and set them in the kitchen to keep the birds and chipmunks out of them while they sprout up.